Last season, I watched Logan Seavey win a USAC Silver Crown race at the Illinois State Fairgrounds mile and conquer his USAC midget foes at Macon (Ill.) Speedway the same night. Later in the summer in a dominant performance, he swept the USAC portion of the 4-Crown Nationals at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway.
By the end of the year, he had captured the USAC Silver Crown and NOS Energy Drink National Midget titles. This past January, he won the Chili Bowl Nationals for the second consecutive year.
Early in the 2024 campaign, he knocked off two USAC AMSOIL sprint car features in a single night. He has done all of this during a 13-month span and yet it seems he captures a fraction of the attention of other stars of open-wheel racing.
Let’s review how his career has transpired. Seavey was the POWRi midget champion in 2017 and one year later he was the king of USAC midget racing. He signed as a development driver with Toyota, won in ARCA, and came within a whisker of topping the first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Eldora. Then he got the message: He was a bit too old for the program. Through it all he remained diplomatic.
Several years ago, when he reflected on this phase of his career, he said, “Personally, I feel I was there at a bad time. They had the most people they ever had and there was a lot of competition for one or two seats. I was the oldest of all of them by far. Chandler Smith was the main guy, and he was really good and really young.”
Going a bit deeper Seavey knew it would have been important to shine more on pavement and lamented his limited opportunities to test. Well, that’s changed too. After taking a run at Kody Swanson the two previous years he finally unseated the perennial Silver Crown champion last season. What helped him get to the top?
One thing that mattered was improved results on the hardtop. Silver Crown racing requires one to adjust to a drastically changing car in long-distance runs and manage your tires. The minute Seavey stepped into one of these big cars he was clearly right at home. In essence the pavement experience is there.
Let’s also reset the entire age paradigm issue. Seavey is 26 years old. When Tony Stewart first arrived at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he was 25. When he took the green flag for his first NASCAR Cup Series race, he was 28. Turning to the current season, when Kyle Larson begins his quest to crack the starting grid at the Indianapolis 500, he will be 31.
Gavin Ward, the team principal for Arrow McLaren, follows short-track racing. He has no doubt Larson has all the requisite skills to be successful in IndyCar. None. Will it take some time and some productive test sessions? Of course, it will. What Ward understands is that skills are sharpened in myriad circumstances and every time you race competitively you learn. When you become a consistent winner that is a transferable skill as well. Ward’s argument applies to Seavey and many of his peers.
If you talk to officials at IMS, they will definitively tell you the late Bryan Clauson moved the needle. Kyle Larson’s month of May will garner the most outside attention since the appearances of Fernando Alonso and Jimmie Johnson. Larson is a generational talent. I get that. Yet, that doesn’t mean everyone else is outside of his universe. His presence at IMS benefits everyone. Seavey, and others in the short-track, open-wheel world would attract attention as well.
My message here is simple: Let’s stop the insanity.
We all understand the power of youth. One can argue it is easier to learn new skills when your mind is more pliable and your routines are not set in stone. Still, I ask you to ponder one simple question: Were you better at your occupation at 20 years old or 30? I would even challenge you to bump that same question forward one more decade or even two.
There is a physical nature to all sports, and we know those skills eventually decline. However, at the core, maturity and judgment are vitally important in auto racing. Just having more life experience can be beneficial as well.
I have watched a plethora of Hall of Fame drivers from their early days to their most productive years. So many of the icons of racing got better with age. I don’t think anyone in IndyCar feels Scott Dixon can’t win the Indianapolis 500 or the championship.
There was a period where I felt Seavey faded a bit into the background. Was it disappointment that one career path suddenly was blocked? I have no idea. Racing is a funny business. Success is so dependent on circumstance. Of prime importance is having the right equipment and the right people around you. I have watched great drivers over-engineer their careers and make poor choices. I have seen others who seemingly have the knack to see into the future and every decision they make is golden. In the worst-case scenario, you don’t even have a chance to choose.
I have no idea if Seavey even cares about IndyCar or NASCAR. Selfishly, I would hate to see him move on. I enjoy watching him do what he is doing right now. It matters not to me other than I realize these avenues increase his chance of making real money.
There is a part of me that knows I am jousting with windmills but one more time. I can’t help it. Every few years my blood pressure shoots sky high. When Kody Swanson won the Hoosier Hundred at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, triumphed the very next night at Indianapolis Raceway Park and then topped the weekend by claiming the Little 500 at Anderson Speedway, I was certain his telephone would ring off the hook. It didn’t.
Then, there was the time I foolishly got in an internet debate over whether Kyle Larson could ever make it in IndyCar. I was told it was time for me to stand down and give up the fight. You can bet I am going to search for that thread.
Now, I am watching Seavey’s magical run. I’m fired up again. This is only one case among many more examples. Understand this, I am amazed at how talented so many very young drivers are today. They come in with years of competitive experience and make the most of their opportunities.
That’s great. However, any world where it is believed that at age 26 Seavey can’t get the job done in other pastures seems to me to be slightly unhinged. It is time to flip the script.